What went wrong with 7 Up? Everything. - Stealing Share What went wrong with 7 Up? Everything. The 7 Up Brand has all but disappeared The primary directive behind building any brand is that you must be single-minded. You can’t be everything to everybody. You must put a stake in the ground and, with authority, say, “This is who we are.” There are many benefits to this approach. For one, your brand message becomes clear to those you are trying to reach. Also, even though it may be a brand message that is universal, it tells a prospect that being a part of your brand is being a member of an exclusive club. It tells prospects that they are special. It also gives your company guidance. If you are about “simplicity,” let’s say, then everything you do – including the messages and advertising you deliver – reflects simplicity. The great divide It’s with that knowledge that we look what went wrong with that soft drink. Owned today by the Dr. Pepper Snapple Group, it was once only behind Coca-Cola and Pepsi in market share. It was the Uncola, with ads featuring Jeffrey Holder. That was in the late 60s and early 70s.

Since then, under the 7 Up brand, there have been 16 versions of it from “7 Upside Down” (yes, the logo was upside down) to Cherry 7 Up, which was the subject of a lawsuit because 7 Up claimed it was an antioxidant. Even stranger, since its market share started plummeting about a decade ago, it has had so many different themelines and different ad campaigns in an attempt to stall its market share fall that the brand has essentially become meaningless. To put it simply, 7 Up couldn’t decide who it was and who it was for. It went from a soda giant to an afterthought. There are market forces that have affected 7 Up as well, but its own lack of brand meaning is what is doing it in. The fall In 1972, 7 Up reached its pinnacle. The Uncola brand and the famous advertising campaign were in full swing. It was the third best-selling soda brand in the US, and the brand could leverage the Uncola brand across many messages. The advertising spouted that it had no caffeine, with Holder saying, “Never had it. Never will.” Everything was cool. 7 Up was cool.

The Uncola brand was positioned against the rest of the market, thereby offering a true choice. Then something happened. Its market share fell off. Advertising campaigns changed constantly. The diet colas entered the market and began taking over. 7 Up, like the rest of the soda brands, had its own diet version. Market share continued to slip to where it was the eighth best-selling soft drink in 2000, with 2% market share. More than a decade later, it has less than 1% market share, its sales dropped 3% in 2013, continuing a downward spiral. 7 Up is basically irrelevant. That’s especially alarming when most of the soda market is targeted to younger audiences, meaning that many of the largest group of buyers of soft drinks hasn’t even heard of it. What happened? There are a variety of reasons often given for why 7 Up has fallen so hard that it’s becoming the soda equivalent of Blockbuster. Let’s list the most common theories, only to realize that, while they all may or may not have contributed, none of them address the real issue: Who is the 7 Up user? More competition 7 Up is no longer the only cola of its ilk in the market.

When it was king, 7 Up was the only soda that wasn’t a “dark” soda that mattered. Today, you have Sierra Mist, Sprite and, the real comer, Mountain Dew. Today, Mountain Dew is the fourth most-popular soda in America, a relatively recent phenomena considering it’s been around since the 40s (when its name was a reference to moonshine). But Mountain Dew did something right at the time of 7 Up’s fall. It decided who it was for. Mountain Dew had a sort of grass roots campaign that was akin to what Pabst Blue Ribbon has become to hipsters. In the case of that beer, the hipster decided that drinking the comically worst beer on the market made him cool. In the case of Mountain Dew, a legend grew from teen males that the Dew was caffeine-addled “rocket fuel,” prompting PepsiCo (which owns Mountain Dew) to feature that demographic skateboarding, partying and playing video games in ads. Naturally, Mountain Dew has become one of the dominant sponsors of the X Games. In some ways, you can spot Mountain Dew as the anti-7 Up.

While the brand has bragged of a mild, anti-caffeine, even Caribbean feel (during the Holder days), Mountain Dew is the exact opposite. By firmly deciding who it is for, Mountain Dew simply blew past 7 Up. It now has more than 7% percent of the soda market share, more than seven times that of 7 Up. Other factors There are other competitive factors. Energy drinks have been rising in volume by double digits recently, with ready-to-drink coffee, bottled water and ready-to-drink tea also rising. Carbonated soft drinks are dropping. The only segment of the beverage industry doing worse is fruit beverages. 7 Up was not able to crack the diet market This one is interesting. Diet colas started emerging in the market when Diet Coke premiered in 1983 and the boom took off. It started a trend in which nearly all soda brands had a light version, a response to concerns over the amount of sugar and calories in traditional soft drinks. In the last six years, diet brands continue to move up. In that time, Diet Coke has gone from third place to second (behind its own Classic brand) and Coke Zero is already in 10th place.

(Diet Pepsi and Diet Mountain Dew are also in the top 10.) It was actually early in the movement, having Sugar Free 7 Up in 1973 and renaming it Diet 7 Up in 1979. So why didn’t they take hold in the market? Some say the problems 7 Up had were twofold. For one, 7 Up kept changing its formula, using aspartame, then switching to Splenda as a sweetener then back to aspartame. Drinkers couldn’t keep up with the changing taste. The other issue was that it had already been marketing itself as a “healthy” soda choice because it did not include caffeine (in what was becoming a more caffeinated world) and that it was already positioned as the Uncola, with its clear color. Did a strength become a weakness? Seems like a stretch but the thinking goes that people thought 7 Up wasalready diet and light, what did it need a light version for? But, for that to have been the cause, the fall of 7 Up would have to have happened much earlier. In fact, it’s worth noting that the 7 Up diet brands fare just as badly as the main 7 Up soda.

No, what happened that was something happened to the brand. What is the problem and how to fixed it? The problem isn’t just the market forces and it’s not the taste of it that went out of fashion, either. In fact, you’d be surprised, if you are blindfolded, how similar the taste is between 7 Up and…Coke. (We’ve done taste tests with large groups to prove it.) What really happened is that once the Uncola ran its course (and it lasted into the early 90s in some markets), 7 Up and its sub-brands ran with a variety of positions, such as: “Now that’s refreshing” “It’s cool to be clear” “6 Up was not enough. We went one louder.” “Make 7 Up yours” “Seven flavors in one drink” “Ridiculously Bubbly” “Be yourself. Be refreshing. Be 7 Up.” The last one is probably most top of mind for most of us. It was the ad that showed musician Cee Lo Green from infanthood, already making musical noises, to today’s star. The ad was catchy and it held promise. It even had an equity marker as the musical noises Mr.

Green made as a child mimicked the sound of opening a 7 Up can. And the actual position of being yourself, which is defined as being refreshing, isn’t terrible. But it was too clever (you’re refreshing like 7 Up, get it? nudge, nudge) and it all basically came down to a celebrity endorsement. Its demonstration of who 7 Up is for comes down to, well, Cee Lo Green. Can 7 Up come back? Absolutely. Unlike other failing brands, such as something like Radio Shack, there is equity in the brand. When it was the Uncola, it was positioned against the rest of the market and it suggested that its drinkers were not ordinary. 7 Up, without using the Uncola position because it would seem retro (and, therefore, trendy), needs to rebrand itself so that its drinkers see themselves as different from the pack that drinks Coke, Pepsi and the rest (including energy drinks, which are taking market share from sodas). The recent Cee Lo Green campaign came close, but it was a lazy attempt. 7 Up needs to look different and have a very different tone from what the rest of sodas advertise today.

Through quantitative research, 7 Up (and, in essence, the Dr. Pepper Snapple Group) needs to find the emotional triggers that drive how consumers choose soft drinks. Once those triggers are found, 7 Up must claim it and define thatas who 7 Up drinkers are and why that makes them different. The Uncola isn’t dead. Its spirit just needs to be brought back to life in a new form. From Uncool to Uncola – The Fabulous Psychedelic 7-Up Ads 1969-1973 | By Rob Baker on 11 December 2014 | comments 3 Share this: ‘Un & Un is Too’ by Kim Whitesides in 1969 No one really knows where the name 7-Up really comes from although we do know that it was invented in 1929 by Charles Leiper Grigg. In 1920 Grigg had already invented an orange carbonated drink called Howdy but it had never been as successful as he hoped mostly due to popular and dominating market leader Orange Crush.

So Grigg searched around for a different kind of soda one without an obvious rival and after two years of experimenting came up with a lemon-lime flavoured drink. Despite being given the rather long-winded name of Bib-Label Lithiated Lemon-Lime soda the soda started selling well. The ”Bib-Label” part of the moniker referred to the paper labels on the bottle, while the “Lithiated” bit, referred to the Lithium Citrate that Grigg hoped would make the drink seem more healthy. Lithium affects the flow of sodium through nerve and muscle cells in the body and is used today to treat the manic episodes of manic depression. Grigg sensibly abandoned the original name of his popular soft drink and after a few pared it down to 7 UP. It was never completely clear what the name referred to but despite the company’s secrecy over the matter there isn’t a good reason to think that it’s not named after the drink’s seven ingredients. An original tagline went: “Seven natural flavors blended into a savory, flavory drink with a real wallop.” One of those ingredients, of course, was lithium and that might have been the ‘Up’ bit in the name.

The US Government banned lithium’s use in foodstuffs in 1948 and, presumably with a licence to delay, 7 Up stopped including lithium citrate in its recipe two years later. No one seemed to notice the lack of the mood-stabilising ingredient and by now 7UP was the third best-selling soft drink in the world. Many of the images can be seen here by btreat on flickr. Some of these incredible ads are available there for rent and for sale. 7UP ads were very family friendly in the 1950s, this ad from 1952. Ad from 1963. 7-Up’s demographic was becoming older in the sixties. The company aimed ads to teenagers but to no avail. Almost twenty years after the mood-altering drug was removed from the ingredient list the Seven-Up Company introduced the slightly counter-culture influenced UNCOLA advertising campaign. Possibly because the drink was considered by youngsters as distinctly uncool and a drink imbibed mostly by the older generation (despite the desperate attempt by 7-Up to use teenagers in their early sixties ads).

7UP’s tagline had long been: “You Like It; It Likes You”, and many presumed because it was less gassy or stomach-upsetting than the cola drinks. The UNCOLA campaign changed everything and the ads seemed to say: ‘This is a drink that is definitely not Cola and we are different and we are proud of the difference’. Within a few months the ads sent 7UP sales rocketing. ‘Un In The Sun’ By Pat Dypold, 1969. “UnCanny In Cans” by John Alcorn, 1969. “The Light Shining Over The Dark” by Pat Dypold, 1971. ‘Like No Cola Can’ – Milton Glaser, 1971. ‘Un For The Good Old Summer Time’ by Barry Zaid, 1971. Don’t Be The Last To UnCola by Pat Dypold, 1971. ‘Butterfly & Bottle’ by Pat Dypold, 1971. ‘Buy a Merry Can’ Jacqui Morgan, 1970. ‘See The Light’ by Bill Bosworth, 1973.

‘Money-Back Bottles Make Cents’ by Skip Willliamson ‘Un With The Show’ by Ray Lyle, 1971. ‘The Order of the Day’ by Simms Taback, 1971. ‘Wet Un Wild’ by Ed George, 1970. ‘The Youth Fare’ by Ed George 1971. ‘Un Un and Away’ by Ed George, 1970. ‘Visit Un City’ by Pat Dypold, 1971. ‘Uncover Summer’ by Pat Dypold, 1971. ‘Dog’s Best Friend’ by Bob Taylor, 1972. ‘Hear No Cola, See No Cola, Drink Uncola’ by Nancy Martell, 1970. ‘Matisse’ by Pat Dypold, 1971. Many of the images can be seen here by btreat on flickr. Some of these incredible ads are available there for rent and for sale. Share this: Great campaign, great images.

btreat I’m surprised and disappointed that 21 of my images (all rights retained) are used in this post without a single attribution. The originals can be found here: Origins of the 7Up Soft Drink Name : snopes.com Claim: The soft drink 7Up was named for the number of its ingredients. LEGEND Origins: The power of the enigma lies in its ability to enthrall, to capture the imagination. As a society, we delight in the little mysteries that don't immediately yield up their answers, which is why products whose names we can't fathom hold their appeal. One such product is 7Up. Though the soft drink itself is not the least bit mysterious, its name is. To this day, no one can swear to know the reason for that particular choice of moniker. Here is what is known: 7Up was invented in October 1929 by Charles Leiper Grigg, a man who ten years earlier had formulated a carbonated orange-flavored drink ("Whistle") while working for an employer with whom he later had a falling out.

Said contretemps led to his packing up and leaving, and in 1920 the employerless Grigg formed his own soft drink company, the Howdy Corporation to produce "Howdy," yet another orange-flavored soda. Howdy was fairly successful as soft drinks go, but it was unable to seriously challenge Orange Crush, the leader in the field, and over time Howdy lost market share to its predominant rival. Rather than see his company die by inches, C.L. Grigg cast about for another sort of soda to broaden his company's consumer base. Grigg discarded colas, root beers, and ginger ales in favor of a lemon-lime concoction. Although most every bottler was producing a lemon-lime drink in those days, none of those sodas had achieved national prominence, a state of affairs that left a golden opportunity forlornly sitting there waiting to be noticed. And Grigg noticed. In response, he invented the soda we now call 7Up. However, the uncola wasn't known as 7Up for the first few years of its existence.

It was originally christened "Bib-Label Lithiated Lemon-Lime Soda." In his formulation, Grigg had included lithia, a naturally-occurring substance found in minute quantities in bubbling waters fed by underground springs. (Lithia is better known as lithium , a drug used to even out mood swings.) Grigg had the notion that the chemical's presumed healthful aspects would be a selling point with the soda-buying public, hence the "Lithiated" in the name. As for "Bib-Label," it was Howdy Corporation's intent to use paper labels of the sort that could be dropped over the necks of otherwise unlabeled bottles. Fortunately, the unwieldy name was soon morphed to "7Up Lithiated Lemon Soda," and in 1936 the soda was officially re-dubbed That same year, the Howdy Corporation became the Seven-Up Company. As to why "7Up," C.L. Grigg never explained how he came up with the cryptic name. Several theories exist about its origin: 7Up was the product of seven ingredients.

(Which, in a way, was at least true with regard to the classes of ingredients in that original formulation: sugar, carbonated water, essences of lemon and lime oils, citric acid, sodium citrate, and lithium citrate.) "Seven Up" has seven letters. (This explanation is rather far-fetched, as it posits that the drink was named after itself.) The beverage was originally sold in 7-ounce bottles. (Which it was. Then again, so was Orange Crush.) Its inventor boasted the drink would cure mankind's "seven hangovers." (Grigg did make this statement, but it was rather tongue-in-cheek.) Grigg saw cattle branded with a mark that resembled "7UP." Reasoning that if the brand was distinctive enough to help a rancher identify his cattle, the soft drink inventor concluded it would similarly work to help consumers remember his new lemon-lime beverage.

(A former 7Up president and chairman did recount this anecdote in a 1942 speech, saying Grigg had read about the history of cow brands in a Sunday newspaper article, including one brand that consisted of a letter "u" on top and to the right of a number "7.") Grigg won a great deal of money in a craps game thanks to all the sevens that were rolled that night. (Though oft repeated, little supports this tale. What money Grigg needed when he started the Howdy Corporation he obtained by bringing in moneyed partners.) Grigg won a fortune at poker, thanks to the seventh "up" card dealt him. (The same reasons for disbelieving the craps explanation apply to the poker postulation.) It's quite possible the drink's name was meant to be a enigma, given that its creator never publicly explained it. It could even have been a nonsense term meant to leave people wondering after its backstory as a way of generating interest in the beverage. (We humans do love mysteries, after all.) Questions of how it came by its name aside, 7Up has attracted another origin rumor.

Many trivia lists circulated on the Internet make the following claim: The 'spot' on 7UP comes from its inventor who had red eyes. He was albino. Charles Leiper Grigg wasn't an albino . In photographs (albeit black and white ones), he appears normally pigmented, and we've yet to encounter a biography of him that makes any mention of his displaying traits of albinism. (By the way, though it is possible for an albino to have reddish or violet eyes, most people with that condition have blue eyes, and some have hazel or brown eyes.) As to where the red dot in the beverage's logo came from, so far the earliest examples we've found of that design have come from the 1970s. Prior to that, the company's trademark for the longest time was a black-outlined white "7Up" on a red background that bore some white bubbles — the red dot was nowhere to be seen. In very early ads, the "7up" 7 UP HISTORY CHARLES LEIPER GRIGG LEMON LIME SODA 7 Up (or Seven Up) is a brand of a lemon -lime flavored non-caffeinated soft drink.

The rights to the brand are held by Cadbury Schweppes Americas Beverages in the United States , and by PepsiCo in the rest of the world (sublicensed to Britvic in the United Kingdom and C&C in Ireland ). Charles Leiper Grigg was born in 1868 in Price's Branch, Missouri. As an adult, Grigg moved to St. Louis and started working in advertising and sales, where he was introduced to the carbonated beverage business. By 1919, Charles Leiper Grigg was working for a manufacturing company owned by Vess Jones. It was there that Grigg invented and marketed his first soft drink called "Whistle". After a dispute with management, Charles Leiper Grigg quit his job (giving away "Whistle") and started working for the Warner Jenkinson Company, developing flavoring agents for soft drinks. Grigg invented then his second soft drink called called "Howdy". When he eventually moved on from Warner Jenkinson Co., he took his soft drink "Howdy" with him. Together with financier Edmund G. Ridgway, Grigg went on to form the Howdy Company. So far, Grigg had invented two orange-flavored soft drinks.

But his soft drinks struggled against the king of all orange pop drinks, "Orange Crush". "Orange Crush" grew to dominate the market for orange sodas. Charles Leiper Grigg decided to focus on lemon-lime flavors and and by in October of 1929 he had invented a new drink called, "Bib-Label Lithiated Lemon-Lime Sodas". The name was quickly changed to " 7 Up Lithiated Lemon-Lime" and then again quickly changed to just plain 7up. 7up merged with "Dr Pepper" in 1986. Formula 7 Up has been reformulated several times since its launch in 1929; in 2006, the U.S. version underwent another reformulation, becoming "100% Natural" with five ingredients: "filtered carbonated water, high fructose corn syrup, natural citric acid, natural flavors, natural potassium citrate". However, classifying this product as "100% Natural" is problematic as high fructose corn syrup is manufactured by using enzymes that convert corn starch into sugar.

(Starch is made up of multiple sugar molecules that have been linked together.) It should also be noted that this is not the case in other countries, such as the United Kingdom , where high fructose corn syrup is not generally used in foods, including 7UP. In 2007, after the CSPI threatened to sue 7 Up, it was announced that 7 Up would stop being marketed as "100% Natural". It is now marketed instead as having "100% Natural Flavors". 7 Up is also available in Cherry 7 Up flavor, with these ingredients listed: Carbonated water, high fructose corn syrup, and 2% or less of each of the following: citric acid, natural and artificial flavors, potassium benzoate (preservative), red 40. Diet Cherry 7 Up has recently been re-introduced due to popular demand after having been missing due to the existence of 7 Up Plus Cherry flavor.

Ingredients are as follows: Filtered carbonated water and contains 2% or less of each of the following: citric acid, natural and artificial flavors, potassium benzoate (protects flavor), aspartame, potassium citrate, acesulfame potassium, red 40. Phenylketonurics: Contains phenylalanine Diet 7 Up has also been reformulated recently where it was packaged and advertised as now made with Splenda sweetener (sucralose) but now the formula has been re-tooled and they are using the following Ingredients: Filtered carbonated water and contains 2% or less of each of the following: natural flavors, citric acid, potassium citrate, potassium benzoate (protects flavor), aspartame, acesulfame potassium, calcium disodium EDTA (protects flavor). Phenylketonurics: contains phenylalanine .

They also do still list the ingredients for Diet 7 Up with Splenda as the following Ingredients: Filtered carbonated water and contains 2% or less of each of the following: natural flavors, citric acid, potassium citrate, potassium benzoate (protects flavor), calcium disodium EDTA (protects flavor), acesulfame potassium, sucralose. . The 7 Up company claims they switched back to aspartame because they conducted a nation-wide study showing that people preferred the 'aspartame taste' over the taste of Splenda-brand Sweetener. 7 Up Plus is still sweetened with Splenda, and they announce no intention of switching it to aspartame. Name origin The origin of the 7 Up name is unclear. One popular story is that its creator named the soft drink after seeing a cattle brand with the number 7 and the letter u. Other theories suggest that the name reflects the seven syllables in the drink's original name (Bib-Label Lithiated Lemon-Lime) or that the drink was formulated with seven flavors plus the carbonation (the bubbles go "up").

Other ideas include that the original bottle contained seven ounces, or that its creator came up with the name while playing dice, or that even it was the 7th large commercial lemonade brand that tasted the same. There is also the rumor that the name was created because the company had previously failed six times, hence the name "7-up". Before the formula change in 2006, looking on a can of 7up included 7 ingredients. The "Up" in the drink's name might refer to the original inclusion of Lithium, a mood stabiliser. Some people mistakenly believe that the name 7 Up comes from the fact that its pH is 7.0 and therefore neutral. This is not the case: the pH of 7 Up is comparable to many other soft drinks. At a pH of 3.67, Diet 7 Up is less acidic than lemon juice (pH 2.3), vinegar (pH 2.9) or wine (pH 3.5) However, the best possibility is that the drink is named after "Seven up", a card game. History Charles Grigg launched his St. Louis-based company 'The Howdy Corporation' in 1920.

Grigg came up with the formula for a lemon-lime soft drink in 1929. The product, originally named "Bib-Label Lithiated Lemon-Lime Soda", was launched two weeks before the Wall Street Crash of 1929. The product's name was soon changed to 7 Up. 7 Up, as its first name suggests, originally contained lithium citrate, a mood-stabilizing drug. It was one of a number of patent medicine products popular in the late-19th and early-20th centuries; they made claims similar to today's health foods. The Great Depression was just the beginning of the business challenges the product would face. In its early years, there were around 600 lemon-lime beverage brands being sold in the US. 7 Up was able to survive and become the market leader in the category by being one of the first to be nationally distributed as well as being marketed as more healthy than other soft drinks. The success of 7 Up led Grigg to rename his company to The Seven Up Company in 1936. Lithium citrate was removed from 7 Up's formula in 1950.

After establishing the category as more than a niche, major competitors set their sights on it such as The Coca-Cola Company with its Sprite brand introduced in 1961. Sprite would not challenge 7 Up's position seriously until the 1980s when Coke forced its major bottlers then distributing 7 Up to drop the beverage in deference to Sprite. 7 Up challenged Coke's actions in court as anti-competitive, a challenge they eventually lost. Philip Morris acquired The Seven Up Company in June 1978. Philip Morris sold the brand's U.S. operations in 1986 to a private investment group, which merged with Dr Pepper Company and established Dallas, Texas as the headquarters of the combined company. 7 Up became dependent on Pepsi's bottlers for distribution during the 1990s, until PepsiCo launched its own serious entrant in the category with Sierra Mist in 2000. PepsiCo then adopted the previous Coca-Cola tactic and forced its bottlers to give up 7 Up for Sierra Mist, which most did by 2003.

The result is that in the United States, DPSU does not have a network of bottlers and distributors, so some of their products are frequently bottled under contract by independent Coca-Cola or Pepsi bottlers, though in some areas independent distributors exist, either by Cadbury-Schweppes, or by individual independent bottling plants such as Vineland Syrup of Vineland, New Jersey and Polar Beverages of Worcester, Massachusetts. These bottlers often do not distribute their products much beyond major supermarket chains, so 7 Up can be difficult to find in smaller stores and vending machines. In an effort to align their brands and build a better "route to market", in 2006 Cadbury Schweppes Americas Beverage acquired most of the independent 7 Up bottlers in the U.S and created the Cadbury Schweppes Bottling Group. In 1998, in the first formula change since lithium's removal, 7 Up was flavor-enhanced, without changing the sugar content or carbonation level. In 2006, the product was re-formulated so that it could be marketed as being "100% Natural" in the United States.

This was achieved by eliminating the preservative calcium disodium EDTA, and replacing sodium citrate with potassium citrate to reduce the beverage's sodium content. This re-formulation contains no fruit juice and is still sweetened with high fructose corn syrup (HFCS). The manufacturing process used to produce HFCS has led some public health and special interest groups to challenge the ad campaign's "natural" claims. In Ireland however, it remains the only carbonated soft drink that is 100% natural (there is no HFCS used in the manufacturing process). This has led it to becoming one of the top five grocery brands across all grocery categories. see Variations 7 Up Plus is a family of fruit-flavored soft drinks, part of the 7 Up family of beverages, and produced by Cadbury-Schweppes . Touted as a healthy alternative, it contains no caffeine and has only 2 carbs per serving, as well as 5% apple juice , which is uncommon among American market carbonated beverages. It is sweetened with Splenda, and the original flavor, Mixed Berry, was released in summer 2004. Two additional flavors have been added to the line, Cherry and Island Fruit.

In Ireland, 2007 7up launched a range of flavoured water. Cultural references When The Seven-Ups (1973) was filmed, all of the actors posed in front of a 7 Up delivery truck to advertise the film. 7 Up products appeared in the James Bond film Moonraker (1979). A 7 Up commercial which ran from about 1971 to 1972 was one of the first manifestations of a revival of 1950s United States youth culture. It featured a leather-jacketed greaser who said: "Hey remember me? I'm a teenager." In 1983, a 7 Up commercial in Mexico featured Kim Carnes' hit "Bette Davis Eyes" with the phrase "Alrededor del Mundo Seven Up" ("Around the world Seven Up"). It also featured the Pac-Man video game. The red spot for 7 Up has been an interim mascot for the brand. He had a video game spinoff called Cool Spot.

DJ Quik raps "I need a 7 Up because my head is spinnin' / round and round, I think I better sit down" in his hit song "Tonite" ("Quik Is The Name", 1991). In the Snoop Dogg song "Chronic Break" from his debut album Doggystyle, he says, "I treat a bitch like 7 Up, I never have I never will." This is a reference to an old slogan of 7 Up, where they asserted that the drink has never and will never contain caffeine . A popular social group known as "Heads Up 7up" was started by a group of UC Berkeley students in 2002. Current members reside in San Francisco, Davis, San Diego, Orange County, Bethesda, Washington D.C. , London and Warsaw. Trivia From the 1960s to the 1990s, 7 Up was billed as "the un-Cola", particularly in a series of ads featuring actor/choreographer Geoffrey Holder. In one commercial, he held a kola nut in one hand and an "un-Cola nut" (a lemon or lime) in the other.

In 1983, a 7 Up commercial was aired in Chile with the slogan "Seven Up, cristalina y refrescante" ("Seven Up, crystalline and refreshing"). It was voiced by Antonio Vodanovic, host of the Song's International Festival of Viï¿½a del Mar. In the late 1990s, 7 Up adopted the slogan "Make 7 Up Yours." They made shirts that said "Make Seven" on the front and "Up Yours" on the back. Ads featured Orlando Jones walking down a street talking about 7 Up, with people looking shocked because of the phrase "up yours". The ads and slogan quickly became popular, but the campaign was fairly short-lived. 7 Up also sold "un-Cola" drinking glasses, which inverted the shape of the Coca-Cola glass. Jamie Hyneman from M5 Industries built a robotic 7-Up vending machine that shoots soda cans at people. It was used in a 7-Up commercial. The robot has since been dismantled for its motor to lift an elevator in one of the MythBusters episode.

A 7 Up bottle cap is found as a treasure in the Nintendo Gamecube videogame Pikmin 2 Ownership 7 Up (or Seven Up) is a brand of a lemon -lime flavored soft drink . The franchise for the brand is held by Dr Pepper/Seven Up in the United States , by Britvic in Great Britain , by C&C in Ireland and by PepsiCo in the rest of the world. The product has been reformulated several times since its launch in 1929; in 2006, it underwent another reformulation, becoming "100% Natural" with five ingredients: "filtered carbonated water, high fructose corn syrup , natural citric acid , natural flavors, natural potassium citrate". The origin of the 7 Up name is not clear. The most popular story is that its creator named the soft drink after seeing a cattle brand with the number 7 and the letter u. Other rumors suggest that the name reflects the drink's seven flavors and carbonation, that the bottle contained seven ounces, that its creator came up with the name while playing dice, or that even it was the 7th large commercial lemonade brand that taste the same.

Advertising According to the Dr Pepper/Seven Up website, the earliest advertising for 7 Up featured a winged logo; the ad described it as a "glorified drink" with "[s]even natural flavors blended into a savory, flavory drink with a real wallop." During most of the 1950's, 7up's slogan was Fresh Up! With 7up. In the early to mid 1960's, 7up was advertised as being Wet & Wild. In 1967, a successful advertising campaign dubbed 7 Up The Uncola and helped cause a major increase in sales by positioning the product as a "thirst-quenching alternative to colas." This campaign lasted well into the mid 1970's. In 1968, 7up utilized the style made successful by Peter Max (who did Yellow Submarine and whos style was being heavily used in advertising at the time) in one of it's commercials, this one for a contest called "The Un-Thing" where a plethora of prizes were offered. Robert Abel and Associates concocted a commercial for 7up in 1974 using their pioneering computer generated special effects.

The advertising campaign was now known as See The Light of 7up. Athletes Sugar Ray Leonard (with his young son at the time) and Tug McGraw appeared in separate 7up commercials during the late 1970's and the early 1980's. The advertising campaign this time was Feeling 7up. A "No Caffeine" campaign started in 1982 was a response to growing consumer concern and confusion about caffeine in soft drinks. The campaign prompted the soft drink industry to produce new caffeine-free products. In the early 1980's the video game Pac-Man was utilized with 7up in a computer animated rendition of the game. The brand has been represented by mascots including Fido Dido and Cool Spot, a sunglasses-sporting red dot. During the early 1980s, actor/choreographer Geoffrey Holder appeared in several commercials, tweaking soft drink rivals by holding a kola nut in one hand and an "un-Cola nut" (a lemon or lime) in the other. Holder had first appeared in 7up ads in the late 1960's - early 1970's.

Sonia Couling became a 7 Up spokesperson in 1988, starting the foremost model of Thailand on her career at the age of 14. More recent advertising campaigns have challenged consumers with slogans such as "Are you an Un?", portraying 7 Up drinkers as rebellious non-conformists, and "Make 7 Up Yours", implying an aggressive double meaning by separating the slogan into "Make 7" and "Up Yours". In 2005, 7 Up announced that it would be awarding one customer a free ticket to Space . Dr Pepper Snapple Group Newsroom - News News In Memoriam: Bill Winter, Longtime Seven-Up Company Executive September 21, 1920 – March 16, 2016 Mar 24, 2016 William E. Winter, former Chairman & CEO, Seven-Up Company William E. (Bill) Winter, the former chairman and CEO of the Seven-Up Company who led the development of the famous “UNCOLA” advertising campaign and pioneered corporate sponsorship of humanitarian causes, has died at age 95 after a long illness, the family announced this week.

A native of Granite City, Ill., Winter began a 59-year career with the Seven-Up Company when he was only 15 years old, working a summer job for his father, sales manager at the Seven-Up Bottling Company in Madison, Ill. He graduated from the University of Illinois in June 1942, earning Phi Beta Kappa distinction in Economics from the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. He joined the U.S. Army Air Corps in 1942 to serve in World War II, rising to the rank of captain. In 1946, Winter returned to work at Seven-Up, starting as sales promotion assistant at the company’s headquarters in St. Louis, Mo., and progressing through the organization to become vice president-director of marketing. In 1967, under his direction, 7UP re-branded itself as the “UNCOLA” in a memorable, award-winning campaign. The brand also hired actor/ director/ choreographer Geoffrey Holder as its spokesperson in one of the most memorable advertising campaigns of all time.

Under Winter’s guidance, 7UP also became a pioneer in cause-related marketing as the first corporate sponsor of the Jerry Lewis MDA Labor Day Telethon, a relationship that raised millions of dollars for the Muscular Dystrophy Association over 40 years of support. In 1974, Winter became Seven-Up Company president and chief executive officer. He was named chairman of the board in 1979. Upon retirement in 1982, he served as a board member and consultant to Seven-Up, continuing after the completion of its merger with Dr Pepper in 1988. He was named chairman emeritus in 1996. 7UP today is one of the leading brands in the portfolio of Dr Pepper Snapple Group (NYSE:DPS). “Bill Winter is someone I admired as a leader in the soft drink business going back to the early days of my career when I carried 7UP on my delivery truck in Springfield, Mo.,” said Larry Young, president of Dr Pepper Snapple. “The ‘UNCOLA’ positioning and the use of an iconic spokesman in Geoffrey Holder were breakthroughs for not only the 7UP brand but also our industry, as was the brand’s longstanding support of MDA.

On behalf of everyone at 7UP and the larger Dr Pepper Snapple team, I extend our condolences to the Winter family.” Winter is survived by Mildred Stiebel Winter, his wife of 39 years; by his two sons by Dorothy Schuster Winter (d. 1976), William C. (Judy) of Wildwood, Mo., and Douglas E. (Lynne) of Oakton, Va.; and by five grandsons and 10 great-grandchildren. tags: Former Seven-Up Marketing VP Who Oversaw 'Uncola' Dies | CMO Strategy - AdAge William E. Winter, former chairman and CEO, Seven-Up Company Credit: Dr Pepper Snapple Group Most Popular Bill Winter, a former Seven-Up Company executive who led marketing as the "Uncola" campaign gained fame, has died at the age of 95 after a long illness. Mr. Winter spent 59 years with the company, including a stint as CEO before he retired in 1982. He was VP of marketing in 1967 when 7UP rebranded itself as the "uncola" in a campaign that Ad Age ranked as the 61st best campaign of the 20th century.

One memorable ad starred actor/director/choreographer Geoffrey Holder who played a planter and compared small, dried cola nuts with the "uncola nuts" (lemons and limes). He was the first black actor to appear in a 7UP ad, reversing a Seven-Up Co. policy that had prohibited African-Americans from appearing in the marketer's ads, according to this 2007 Ad Age video interview with Charlie Martell, the J. Walter Thompson creative director who wrote the ad. Mr. Winter was also a pioneer in cause-related marketing, helping make 7UP the first corporate sponsor of the Jerry Lewis MDA Labor Day Telethon, according to a statement issued today by the Dr Pepper Snapple Group. Seven-Up merged with Dr Pepper in 1988. Related Stories Geoffrey Holder, Voice of 7UP's 'Uncola' Dies "Bill Winter is someone I admired as a leader in the soft-drink business going back to the early days of my career when I carried 7UP on my delivery truck in Springfield, Mo.," Larry Young, president of Dr Pepper Snapple, said in the statement.

"The 'Uncola' positioning and the use of an iconic spokesman in Geoffrey Holder were breakthroughs for not only the 7UP brand but also our industry, as was the brand's longstanding support of MDA." In this article: Uncola: The Video History of a 7UP Breakthrough Ad | News - AdAge Adage Aleady a member? Sign in Get More From Ad Age Register to become a member today. You'll get the essential information you need to do your job better, including 7 free articles per month on Ad Age and Creativity Ability to comment on articles and creative work Access to 9 custom e-newsletters like Ad Age Daily, Ad Age Digital and CMO Strategy To get unlimited content and more benefits, check out our Membership page Register Now Want more Access, Content & Connections? We are glad you are enjoying Advertising Age. To get uninterrupted access and additional benefits, become a member today. Already a member? Log in or go back to the homepage . Hey, there. It looks like you're using an ad blocker. The news and features are funded in part by our advertisers.

To support Ad Age and the industry we cover please either: Uncola: The Video History of a 7UP Breakthrough Ad How Actor Geoffrey Holder Brought Down a Racial Barrier By Karl Idsvoog . Published on May 07, 2007 . NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- In the early 1970s, as part of its new "uncola" advertising strategy, the 7UP company had J. Walter Thompson produce a TV commercial starring actor, director and choreographer Geoffrey Holder as a Caribbean planter explaining the difference between cola nuts and 7UP's "uncola nuts," lemon and lime. The extraordinary performance of the Trinidad-born Mr. Holder made the spot one of the most remembered commercials of all time. But behind the scenes, the project also represented a dramatic change in the marketing culture of the soft-drink company -- the first time it allowed a person of color to be cast in its TV ad. Researched and produced by Bill Barre and Karl Idsvoog, both professors at Kent State University, this seven-minute program uses interviews with former JWT executives Charlie Martell and Jon Furr to tell the story of 7UP's racial breakthrough.

Advertising Age Embedded Player 7up Advertising Campaign 7up Advertising Campaign Show related SlideShares at end WordPress Shortcode Are you sure you want to Yes No Your message goes here Robert Treat My thought is that 7Up needs to resurrect & modernize the UnCola ad campaign used from 1969 to the mid 1970's. Check out the eye-popping graphics that turned 7Up's fortunes around 44 years ago (at least while they used the slogan). If you doubt that nostalgia is big right now, consider that Mad Men will end their award winning TV series next year in 1969 - the same year 'The UnCola' captured the mood of the times so well. People today still remember 'The UnCola'. The History Of 7UP Services The History Of 7UP The Seven-Up Company’s roots go back to 1920, when C. L. Grigg banked on his 30 years of experience in advertising and merchandising to form The Howdy Corporation in St. Louis, Mo.

Although he named the company after the Howdy Orange drink he pioneered, his goal was to create a wholesome and distinctive soft drink that would prove irresistible to the nation’s consumers. Grigg spent more than two years testing 11 different formulas of lemon-flavored drinks. He settled on one that fulfilled the characteristics he sought: refreshing and thirst-quenching. Grigg introduced his new soft drink two weeks before the stock market crashed in October 1929. It was a caramel-colored, lithiated lemon-lime soda, which he positioned as a drink with a “flavor wallop” to market alongside the already-successful Howdy Orange drink. It cost more than its competition. It also carried the burden of an unwieldy name, “Bib-Label Lithiated Lemon-Lime Soda,” and it competed against more than 600 lemon-lime soft drinks already in the marketplace. In spite of all the obstacles, the new brand sold well. Shortly afterwards, Grigg changed the brand’s name to 7UP. The earliest 7UP advertising featured a winged 7UP logo and described the soft drink as “a glorified drink in bottles only.

Seven natural flavors blended into a savory, flavory drink with a real wallop.” Acknowledging the success of the 7UP trademark in 1936, Grigg changed the name of The Howdy Corporation to The Seven-Up Company. By the late 1940s, 7UP had become the third best-selling soft drink in the world. In 1967, The Seven-Up Company introduced the UNCOLA advertising campaign, which sent 7UP sales rocketing nationwide. Consumers endorsed 7UP as a viable, thirst-quenching alternative to colas. The UNCOLA tag immediately joined the nation’s vernacular and remained synonymous with 7UP, despite subsequent campaigns that featured new slogans. In 1970, The Seven-Up Company introduced sugar-free 7UP, which was an immediate success among the growing number of calorie-conscious Americans. It was named Diet 7UP in 1979. In June 1978, Philip Morris acquired The Seven Up Company. The 7UP “No Caffeine” campaign garnered national attention for the company four years later, as it appealed to growing consumer concern and confusion about caffeine in soft drinks.

The campaign launched 7UP sales into an unprecedented period of growth and forced the soft drink industry to address the caffeine issue with new products and other competitive countermeasures. In 1986, Philip Morris sold the domestic operations of The Seven-Up Company to a private investment group for $240 million and the company was merged with Dr Pepper Company. The new management team consolidated administrative functions of The Seven-Up Company at the Dallas headquarters of Dr Pepper Company. Sales and marketing staffs remained separate and, although The Seven-Up Company moved its headquarters to Dallas in 1987, manufacturing of 7UP products remained at the company’s St. Louis facility. The Seven-Up Company introduced Cherry 7UP and Diet Cherry 7UP in early 1987. Marketed to young people, the new products were designed as light, refreshing additions to the prestigious family of 7UP brand products and met with instant success across the country. To further boost awareness levels of 7UP in the nation’s youth market in 1987, The Seven-Up Company introduced Spot, a character derived from the red dot in the 7UP trademark.

From his inception, Spot rapidly developed into a popular cartoon character represented on licensed items throughout the nation. The character was featured in 7UP advertising and packaging until 1995. With the March 1995 acquisition of Dr Pepper/Seven-Up Companies, Inc. by Cadbury Schweppes plc, 7UP became part of Cadbury Beverages North America. Shortly thereafter, the brand underwent a revitalization reaching out to a younger audience. In the fall of 1995, splash package graphics were introduced for all four flavors of the brand to create a contemporary, exciting new look. The Spot character was eliminated with this graphics change. A 20-ounce package featuring a splash design and unique easy-to-grip bottle was designed and introduced to gain market share in a variety of single-serve purchase locations. In July 1996, the company changed its name to Dr Pepper/Seven Up, Inc. That same year, “7UP. It’s An Up Thing” became an instantly accepted tagline for the product as part of a new advertising campaign to relaunch the revitalized brand.

New advertising creative featuring actor/comedian Orlando Jones and the slogan “Make 7UP Yours” was launched in late 1999. The popular “Make 7UP Yours Campaign” continued in 2003 debuting comedian/actor Godfrey as the bumbling 7UP guy. In 2000, 7UP debuted a bolder, cleaner, more contemporary packaging graphics image, focused at, but not exclusive to, 12- to 24-year-old consumers. Cherry 7UP, Diet Cherry 7UP and Diet 7UP also received flavor enhancements in 2000. What’s in a name? Although C.L. Grigg never explained the origin of the soft drink’s name, many stories abound. The most popular story is that Grigg named the soft drink after he saw a cattle brand with the number “7” and the letter “U”. Other stories suggest that the name reflects the drink’s seven flavors and carbonation, or that Grigg came up with the name while playing dice.

Question: What soft drink advertised itself as the Uncola?
Answer: 7Up